Many motorized vehicles use cables to control certain functions of the machine, such as to actuate the throttle, clutch and brakes. A block drawing of a control cable is shown in FIG. 1. These control cables 1 generally include a central wire 2, which is surrounded by a protective sleeve 3, which also provides anchoring points for the overall assembly, whereby the sleeve 3 is fixed in position while the internal wire 2 is allowed to slide within. There is an internal space 4 between the inner side of the sleeve 3 and the outer surface of the wire 2, within which the wire 2 moves relative to the sleeve 3. The wire 2 also usually has a fitting 5 attached to the end of the wire 2, which is captured in a notch in some control mechanism, such as throttle, brakes, etc. by which the motion of the wire 2 is used to activate or regulate some function of the vehicle. The cable 1 has two ends, one of which may be more easily accessed, and will be called the near end 6. This near end 6 provides an access opening 7 to the internal space 4 between the inner side of the sleeve 3 and the outer surface of the wire 2, into which lubricant is sprayed or injected to provide easy translational movement between the wire 2 and the sleeve 3.
Almost all of these control cables need to be lubricated in order to reduce internal friction and extend the life of the cable. Generally, this is done by spraying or injecting lubricant into the internal space 4 through the access opening 7.
Previously, this required a nozzle of a can of pressurized lubricant to be mated to the access opening 7 of the near end 6 of the control cable 1. This mating was generally difficult since cables come in a variety of sizes and the nozzle of the lubricant can was not adaptable to this variety of configurations. Thus, the lubrication operation was usually a messy affair, which got a lot of lubricant on the user's hands or clothing and wasted a lot of mis-directed lubricant.
Attempts to address this problem have been made. An existing device is a clamp that uses a rubber sleeve with a tapered internal bore that is slit lengthwise such that it can be fitted over the end of the cable housing where the inner wire protrudes. This slit tapered rubber sleeve is set inside a clamping device that allows the user to compress the tapered rubber sleeve over the end of the cable housing where the inner wire protrudes. The idea is that the smaller end of the tapered rubber sleeve is clamped tight over the inner wire while the larger end of the tapered tube would be clamped around the cable housing and the slit in the sleeve clamped together. This device has one or two small round openings that are aligned with a similar openings in the tapered rubber sleeve that allow the user to introduce compressed lubricant with a wand. The lubricant is then directed into the space between the inner wire and the housing. However, in practice, these devices have not been able to provide anything close to a liquid tight seal against the inner wire of the cable because most inner wires consist of multiple strands of wire that are spiral wound and have flutes that allow liquid to go past the seal no matter how tightly it is clamped down onto the inner wire. In addition, in practice, the slit in the tapered sleeve is difficult to clamp together to prevent leakage of fluid because they cannot accommodate the large variations in cable housing diameter. As a result, in use, these devices leak substantial amounts of lubricant and allow substantial portions of the lubricant to be ejected from the device, and only the portion of the lubricant that is put in the device is actually forced into the cable that is being serviced. As a result, the existing device is very messy to use, does not make efficient use of lubricant, and does not allow complete cleaning or lubrication of the cable being serviced.
It should be noted that control cables are also used on non-motorized vehicles such as bicycles, and in many types of non-vehicular machinery. Lubricants also come in several varieties such as spray lubricants in aerosol cans, as well as lubricants which use other delivery devices, such as squeeze tubes and others.
Thus, there is a need for a control cable lubrication device which effectively directs lubricant into the internal space of a control cable.